September 13, 2010

Dispatches from the Robot Apocalypse – Part V

A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught.

While this sounds like a scene from Terminator, it’s actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by the Georgia Institute of Technology researchers as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception.

Actually it does sound like a scene from Terminator, now you mention it. There’s nothing to worry about though:

Most social robots will probably rarely use deception, but it’s still an important tool in the robot’s interactive arsenal because robots that recognise the need for deception have advantages in terms of outcome compared to robots that do not recognise the need for deception, said study co-author Alan Wagner, the research engineer at the Georgia Tech.

Yeah, that “probably” really inspires confidence. And frankly I care less about what the “social” robots do than, in the words of Tom Scocca “What about the killbots?”